Communication networks typically include network elements, which transfer or switch data from one or more sources to one or more destinations. For example, the network element may receive a data unit from a source device (or another network element), may determine a destination for the data unit, and may send an original or a modified data unit to a destination device (or another network element). A network element may send a request to a server device. For example, the network element may act as a gateway and may send an authorization request to an authorization server device. If the network element does not receive a response within a timeout period, the network element may need to retransmit the request to the server device. However, if the server device went down or if a connection to the server device has been lost, the server device may be unreachable. Retransmitting requests to an unreachable server device may result in long delays.